The invention relates to improvements in apparatus for transporting cigarettes or other rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for transferring arrays of rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry with two or more conveyors. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for transferring substantially block-shaped arrays of rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry with two or more conveyors in cigarette packing or analogous machines.
It is already known to manipulate arrays of rod-shaped articles (such as plain or filter cigarettes) in a packing machine while the arrays are in continuous motion, or while the arrays are intermittently advanced, in the pockets of endless conveyors. For example, one of the conveyors can serve to deliver arrays from an arraying station formations (e.g., formations containing five, ten or twenty articles). Block forming stations are described and shown, for example, in commonly owned Erdmann U.S. Pat. No. 4,362,235 and Erdmann et al. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,471,866 and 4,503,967 to which reference may be had, if necessary. A second conveyor which receives the arrays or formations from the one conveyor can cooperate with the one conveyor to complete one or more wrapping or packing operations. Additional wrapping operations can be carried out while the arrays advance with the second conveyor, during transfer of partly wrapped arrays onto a third conveyor and/or during advancement of arrays in the pockets of the third conveyor. Reference may be had to commonly owned Deutsch U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,866,910 and 4,889,226 and to commonly owned Bamrungbhuet et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,999,970.
A drawback of certain presently known apparatus is that the arrays of rod-shaped articles are not invariably in an optimum orientation for transfer from conveyor to conveyor or for the application of one or more blanks of wrapping material thereto. Moreover, it is desirable to further increase the rate of transport of arrays in certain presently known mass-producing or mass-processing machines, e.g., in cigarette packing machines. Still further, presently known apparatus cannot ensure a longer-lasting alignment of pockets for formations of rod-shaped articles on two neighboring conveyors even though longer-lasting alignment would be desirable and beneficial for the making of cigarette packs with a higher degree of reliability and reproducibility.